30 May 2012

Effie Gullett Midwife Records Part #2

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber May 2012

Continued series of midwife records of Effie Gullett who resided in Boyd County, Kentucky. Every effort has been made to transcribe the records exactly as entered including spelling. Copies of the actual records will be donated to the Boyd County Public Library at the conclusion of this series. Transcriber notes are in brackets.

29 May 2012

Effie was born 20 April 1872, the first child of
Fleming Low Brown and wife Sena E. Porter.
She married Henry Allen Gullett [son of James Presley and Susan Ann
Fraley Gullett] at Pleasant Hill School
House, Limestone, Carter County, Kentucky on 21 April 1889.

I am extremely grateful to the Gullett family for
sharing pages from the family bible as well as trusting me with ten of Effie’s
recorded midwife books between 1920 and 1945.
The genealogy community will benefit tremendously from these wonderful
records.

Census records place Henry Allen and Effie in Boyd
County beginning in 1900. They are listed as living on Williams Creek, Coalton
of Cannonsburg District. While the
district name changes from 1900 thru 1930 the census still indicates they
stayed in this area of the county. Her
husband is listed as a coal miner and not one census record indicates that
Effie brought countless numbers of Boyd County folk into the world.

Ida Effie Brown Gullett was a midwife in Boyd County
more than two and a half decades. She
practiced midwifery in the 1920’s when as many as fifty percent of women gave
birth in hospitals. Living in the southwest
section of Boyd County families still found it a comfort to have their babies
at home. Effie practiced into the 1930’s. By 1930 trained qualified public health
nurses practiced midwifery. Effie
followed the protocol filing proper Kentucky Board of Health forms for
physicians and signing as midwife.

By 1939 doctors were using “twilight sleep” for
deliveries in hospitals. Effie continued in the 1940’s with home
deliveries. By then fifty percent of
women and 75 percent of urban women went to hospitals for delivery.

I have completed digitizing each page of the books
entrusted in my care. From dates within the books/booklets there were probably
many more births and other little books still tucked away or lost with time. A
copy of the digitized records, with permission from the family, will be placed
in the Boyd County Public Library for future researchers who wish to utilize
them.

A random check of entries show several mis-spellings in
the Kentucky State Birth Index. One
child was entered as male when it is clearly a female named Iva [not named Ival]. Another
random check shows several filed many years after the initial birth. Other entries
could not be located or were filed with a modified given name later.

Some entries are out of sequence in
Effie’s books. Entries were written twice and the perforation removed and one
copy sent to the state. A family member says that if a person visited for proof of birth she would tear out the page entry and give it to the person. There are several pages missing in each book.

Each entry
should be checked against an official birth certificate with the State of
Kentucky if one is available.

Book 1920-1923

Surname, Given Name

Date of Birth

Family Information

Flood, Anna G.

22 Mar 1922

Born Boyd County, Princess #10. Girl. Legitimate. Father Virgil Flood, white, age 25, born Salt Lick, occupation traveling man. Mother's maiden name Amellie Shelton, white, age 25, born Old Princess, housewife. Number of children of this mother 3.

Born Boyd Co., Cannonsburg. Male, leigitimate. Father John Huff, white, 56, born Carter Co., farmer. Mother's maiden name Mary Brown, white, 39, born Boyd Co., housewife. Number of child of this mother 8 all living. [KY State Index lists him as Samuel C.]

Born Boyd Co., Cannonsburg. Male. Legitimate. Father Will Kazee, white, age 27, born KY, coal miner. Mother's maiden name Carrie Terry, white, age 19, born KY, housewife. Number of chilfren of this mother 2.

Keeton, Lonnie

11 Apr 1923

Born Greenup County. Male. Legitimate. Father Dan Keeton, white, age 21, born Johnson County, occupation roller. Mother's maiden name Dora Blevins, white, age 21 born Johnson County, housefie. Number of child of this mother 2.

Keffer, Garnet

15 Nov 1922

Born Boyd County, Princess #10. Female. Legitimate. Father Robert Keffer, white, age 31, born Grayson, teamster. Mother's maiden name Minnie Steele, white, age 21, born Olive Hill, housewife. Number of child of this mother 2.

Born Boyd County, Coalton #7. Male. Legitimate. Father Charles Kitchen, white, age 37, born Rush, miner. Mother's maiden name Arael Mcnight, white, age 38, born Flat Woods, Ohio, housewife. Number of child of this mother 7.

Lawson, Helen Charline

17 Nov 1922

Born Boyd County, Princess #10. Female. Legitimate. Father Jessie Lawson, white, age 30 born Boyd County, miner. Mother's maiden name Cora Lee Moore, white, age 30, born Boyd County, housewife. Nubmer of child of this mother 4.

Born Boyd Co., Princess #10. Male. Legitimate. Father Charl[e]s A. Pack, white, no further information. Mother's maiden name Esta More, no further information.

Stephens, Pauline E.

4 Apr 1922

Born Boyd County, Princess #10. Female, legitimate. Father Lead Stephens, white, age 24, born KY, miner. Mother's maiden name Stella Hall, white, age 19, born KY, housewife. Number of child to this mother 2. Number of children of this mother now living 1.

18 May 2012

Day Research Faux Pas

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber May 2012

The past several years I have been dusting off many years of
research and have been carefully scanning and double checking documentation.
Amazing what a good review will uncover.

Scanning my Day
research I realize I was one of the contacts James Edward Day made shortly
before his death.He had written Descendants of Christopher Day of Bucks
County, Pennsylvania in 1959.His
1994 letters state that he now knew the parents of Christopher were Christopher
Day and Elizabeth Gowland from Eston, Yorkshire.

It was not long until I was able to find what I always term
a “red flag” in research.Many of the web
sites that are floating state that Christopher Day of Bucks County was baptized
22 March 1689.My own website has not been updated and is in
ERROR. [Not only did I key in the baptism as 22 March
1689 using secondary material but I also put that he was possibly born in the
Province of Pennsylvania.I must have
been sipping wine at the time!]

The Yorkshire records are now readily available.But apparently no one has looked at them
closely or chose to ignore the burial records.The Eston Parish records were transcribed by the Yorkshire Archaeological
Society & Yorkshire Parish Register Society and I did plow through the
transcriptions .

J. Edward Day was correct that a Christopher Day married
Elizabeth Gowland 30 January 1677 [Eston
Register page 36].It is followed by the
baptism of a daughter 26 August 1677.Three
more daughters were baptized between 1678-1687.Then on 22 March 1690 Christopher
son of Christopher was baptized at Easton [page 46]. It was followed almost
immediately with “Christopher Day son of
Christopher Day Bur ye 8 Day July” 1690 [page 46].

The following year Christopher and Elizabeth Gowland Day
have another daughter Elizabeth baptized and recorded.The elder Day’s both died within a month of
each other at Eston in 1721.

They may have had another son after the death of Christopher
in 1690. It was common to name a child after a deceased infant. It is doubtful there was yet another
Christopher with son Christopher during this time when the records for this parish
are reviewed carefully.

There are other red
flags.Our ancestor, Christopher Day
resided in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

The first recorded land purchase mentioned for a Christopher Day occurredin 1689
in the Province of Pennsylvania within what is Bucks County.The purchase was from Arthur Cooke for a portion
of a 2000 acre survey.1689 places all
of the issues cited at Eston in England as infants.

The History
of Bucks County, Pennsylvania mentions an Arthur Day and Richard Day as
landowners in Plumstead, Bucks County that J. Edward Day never connected
to the family and warrants further research.

The Christopher Day of this topic is
said to have married wife Martha 4 November 1714 and then baptized two days
later at Pennypack Baptist Church in northeastern Philadelphia. The church was
first known as Lower Dublin Church. Portions
of the church wanted Saturday as the Sabbath when Keithians [dissident
Friendssometimes called Christian Quakers]
merged with Lower Dublin.J. Edward Day commented in correspondence that Christopher was a witness to a Quaker wedding in 1722.

Using a mathematical assumption [the
word we never want to use in genealogy] that places Christopher of Bucks County
just coming of age at his marriage in 1714 – his birth could be about 1693.Even this presents a problem.According to The History of Bucks County Thomas Dungan sold 50 acres to our
Christopher Day in 1708.This is about
one mile above Cross Keys where Christopher Day is buried.Dungan was the minister at Pennypack Church.Using the same mathematical assumption had
he just become of age in 1708 he would be born about 1687.This
makes linking Christopher who dies in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1748 even
less likely to be the son of the Day family cited in the Eston records above.

No one, to date, has been able to pinpoint Christopher Day's age when he made his will in Bucks County in 1748 [WBK 2 p 141]. If he died age 80 he would have been born about 1668. this places him as an older gentleman when he married at Pennypack. He and Martha had six children including Nathaniel [my line] and Christopher Jr. born about 1723.

This is not the first time
that erroneous material has been regenerated.It is not the first time I have made an error.When one makes a faux pas it is just best to
get it out there and hope that this will also "regenerate" so that the
questions can be answered.

Teresa Martin Klaiber

Welcome to The Eastern Kentucky Genealogy Blog. As research crosses my desk, here in Eastern Kentucky, there are many times I wish I could share a tidbit with other researchers and share memories with my family. The excitement of a new discovery needs to be shared. Questions need answered. Come back to the blog often as I intend to highlight research and families in our area.